Gearflow.com Gets $1.1M Seed Funding for Rental Platform
Gearflow.com this week announced a $1.1 million seed funding round to support the growth of its platform and team. This round of funding was completed with participation from Seth Lawry, Cindy Lawry, and Soren Oberg of Thomas H. Lee Partners, Annabelle LLC, and Chicago Early Growth Ventures.
"This funding kicks off our development of the next iteration of Gearflow.com to help all businesses in the construction equipment industry seamlessly transition into the digital economy," said Luke Powers, Founder and CEO of Gearflow.com. “Coming from equipment rental, I saw an opportunity to support all of the great businesses that make up this industry and now we will have the platform and team to do it."
The construction equipment rental industry, a $55 billion industry in the U.S., is comprised of thousands of businesses – 80 percent of which are independent owners, said Gearflow.
This new round of funding will be used to accelerate product development and to grow the team.
Specifically, the areas that the Chicago-based company will focus on are:
- Improving the online buying experience for end users.
- Refining the seller experience on Gearflow.
- Growing their team to scale customer support.
"Gearflow.com is poised to fill a tremendous void in the construction equipment space and we're excited about their opportunity for growth," said Jeff Eschbach, Founding Partner of Chicago Early Growth Ventures. "But what really set Gearflow.com apart for Chicago Early Growth Ventures is their deep connections within the equipment rental space and experienced founders that have spent years working and learning the rental industry. They have the vision and domain expertise to fundamentally improve the way construction equipment is bought, rented, and sold."
Gearflow.com launched in the fall of 2018 and has grown to more than 90 active sellers from independent to national rental equipment companies.
Gearflow.com is an e-commerce platform built to support and digitally represent the thousands of construction equipment rental companies and complementary businesses that make up the construction equipment industry. Meanwhile, equipment end-users have one place for all of their equipment needs.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.